After securing the necessary funds on its Kickstarter page, and after enduring Lindsay Lohan’s trademark version of “professionalism,” The Canyons looks like it will finally be released next month. The film, which was written by Bret Easton Ellis and directed by Paul Schrader, got its first official trailer this week.
The Canyons Gets a Trailer
The Same Grace
"I do not wish to presume. I want to love. Oh God please make my mind clear." It's no secret that Flannery O'Connor was both an incredible writer and a devout Catholic. The New Yorker has just published a few excerpts from her Prayer Journal which are characteristically beautiful whether or not you're a believer.
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Fun Fact: Emily’s Not Keen on Time Travel
Jason Rice interviewed our own Emily St. John Mandel yesterday. They talk about her new book, The Lola Quartet, which celebrates its One Day Old birthday today.
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No Fake Readers
"An appreciation of readers as diverse individuals with different tastes should be a basic tenet of criticism. Instead, it’s common for critics to imagine that their aesthetic preferences are the reflections of “readers” or a special class of readers—“serious readers,” “imaginative readers,” “brave readers,” or some other ill-defined category—whose views truly matter." Lincoln Michel explains why "there's no such thing as a fake reader" in an essay for Electric Literature.
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This Job Completes Me
“Now, I ask you, what if all along it was as simple as joining this company to fill the part of me missing? What if some deranged wiring or disease has forced me to isolate myself away instead of considering being part of a team like the one here at your company? I feel pretty good right now, and I’m not even officially part of anything. Just even filling out this application is fixing me.” Quotes from Dan Kennedy’s poetic job interviews.
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NPR Reviews the New Franzen
Alan Cheuse's review of Jonathan Franzen's much-anticipated new novel, Freedom, appeared on All Things Considered yesterday...and begs the question of what kind of compassion we look for in novels.
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Quite the Crossover Artist
Before Dr. Seuss penned the Lorax who spoke for the trees, he drew ads for Standard Oil, General Electric, and a host of other large corporations who spoke for a considerably different constituency. This great collection of advertising artwork from Theodore Seuss Geisel courtesy of the Mandeville Special Collections Library at the University of California, San Diego.
Tuesday New Release Day: Irving, Morrison, Mantel, Colbert, Patchett
Time to dust off the old John Irving Recurring Themes Matrix because his new book In One Person is out today. Also out are Home by America's last Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison and Bring Up the Bodies, Hilary Mantel's hotly anticipated sequel to Booker- and Rooster-winning Wolf Hall. Also out is I Am a Pole, Stephen Colbert's "children's book" that was inspired by an epic visit from Maurice Sendak. Out in paperback is Ann Patchett's State of Wonder.
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What’s In the Trunk?
Recommended Viewing: Alejandro Cartagena’s photo series, “The Car Poolers.”
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